Japan
In search of a role
Michael Meacher
This is the second of two articles by the Labour MP for Oldham West, who was a member of the Parliamentary delegation that recently visited Japan.
On the basis of GNP projections, futurologists have already predicted that the twenty-first century will be Japanese. But two factors Inhibit the emergence of Japan as the next super-power: vulnerability and dependence. Japan is vulnerable as a relatively small and mass immediately adjacent to the three existing (or potential) super-powers: America, Russia and China. Since three-quarters of the country is mountainous and uninhabited, the squeezing of the 103 million population into tIC remaining quarter makes Japanese cities Peculiarly exposed.
Japan's dependence follows from its inu
_ngenous scarcity of raw materials, which accordingly account for no less than 70 per cent of its imports. Its dependence on foreign sources for oil is total. Last year it consumed 240 million tons of crude oil, and the meaning of this dependence can be demonstrated by the fact that if this vast amount were to be transported only by 100,000-ton tankers, then JaPanese ports would have to receive these tankers every four hours day and night throughout the year. Similarly, dependence on other supplies clitical for a highly industrialised economy is growing. For iron ore, copper, lead, coal and natural gas the degree of reliance on foreign sources will daring the 1970s rise to very high leyels indeed, and for aluminium, uranium and nickel, as well as oil, it is already and will remain 100 per cent dependence. , In the light of these strategic limitations, '"aPanese foreign policy can be said to be -.11aracterised by the dual considerations of i'eePing options open, particularly the nuclear ne, while at the same time diversifying ePendences. It is a policy however fIncreasingly fraught with international dificulties. „Nowhere is this more apparent than over 'Ile burgeoning world energy crisis. At the eihercy of the oil majors, Japan's aloofness 1r0mWestern pressures to form an associa n of oil-consumer countries to counter the middle Eastern OPEC has caused bitterness. SM top of this, the independence of Japan's 'ewe, spearheaded by Yasuhiro Nakasone, the 48gressive head of the Trade Ministry (MITI), to diversify their oil supply lines across the 'world has seemed to some too much like tealing a prior place in an international ee-for-all scramble. Not only is the supply of f4rg e quantities of crude oil being negotiated 401.11 the Tyumen oilfields of Siberia, despite Jbarrassment at strong Chinese protests . ter the recent Tokyo-Peking detente, but Joint ventures have recently been agreed in oil e3ctraction as far away as Peru and Colombia. f Comparable problems are likely to arise ,.
,inlY1 the anticipated flood of Japanese over
direct investment. This can be expected '0 develop on a massive scale, partly to secure W material supplies, partly to gain the ;°mParative advantage of lower labour costs, 'lid partly to reduce the huge surplus on IcUrrent account. For these reasons little of e,se capital exports may find their way into riitain, though some certainly will, to gain a tcal foothold in future markets: Sony Corl"oration, for example, are about to open a telour TV factory at Bridgend, Glam. But
apart from exaggerated fears that the Japanese are now about to use the rewards of an under-valued yen to buy up the world,' doubts are likely to centre on whether last month's belated liberalization of foreign capital flows into Japan is fully reciprocal. Restrictions are still placed on foreign investments in petroleum refining, information processing, leather goods, retail distribution, agriculture and forestry, and real estate. But far more important to Europeans in Japan's emerging international role is their response to the forthcoming GATT talks on trade liberalisation in Tokyo next September. Allegations about Japanese ' dumping ' practices, or equivalent price-cutting selling terms, have been rife, and certainly Japanese export prices, according to IMF figures, rose only 7 per cent during the 1960s while their domestic prices rose 78 per cent. In fact however trade barriers between Japan and Western Europe have been in rough balance, though each side has placed stronger emphasis on some restrictions rather than others. Japan generally maintains higher tariffs on manufactured imports than do Western European countries, though the reverse is true for semi-manifacturers. Nontariff barriers, on the other hand, have been steadily reduced by Japan over the last decade, while Europe has been erecting new ones. Also, some European barriers have been specifically directed against Japanese goods, while Japanese barriers are non-discriminatory. European resentment has particularly focused on the apparent Japanese tendency to concentrate penetration on one sector of a foreign market, and also on the inadequacy of the so-called 'voluntary restraints' on trade. In such sensitive areas as ball and roller bearings, colour TV sets and ships, such restraints have seemed either indefinite or fragile and give an impression of affording maximum freedom of manoeuvre for the Japanese.
Increasing dependence on foreign goodwill over raw material supplies and trade protectionism is therefore one aspect of the Japanese dilemma as an emerging world leader. The other main aspect hinges around the nuclear option, which itself turns on the relationship with the U.S. Japan already produces uranium 235, and there can be little doubt that within a decade its supply of plutonium will be sufficient to manufacture a large atomic arsenal, even if it might take rather longer to obtain an effective nuclear deterrent. Certainly such a prospect is vigorously forsworn by the Japanese partly on the greunds that the electorate would not accept it, which is true at present. But it is significant that Japan has not ratified the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The real key to the situation remains however the American connection, Yet it is an association which has recently been showing distinct signs of strain. The American reverse in the Vietnam War, the Nixon shock' economic measures of 1971, and the American deception over normalising relations with China without prior consultation of the Japanese have all left their mark. Many Japanese now feel that the intensity of the bilateral relationship with the U.S. may no longer be healthy, and with the likely departure of most American troops from Japan by 1975, alternative defence frameworks are being discussed more widely than before. A Pacific maritime pact between Japan, Australia and Indonesia remains one possibility, though the Japanization of Asian security is strongly resisted in some quarters and Australia certainly fears becoming a Japanese Canada.
Even though Japan could probably secure a second-strike nuclear capability within fifteen years, and though nationalist sections within the ruling Liberal Democrat Party have begun openly to advocate such a course, it remains unlikely during the early future. It would certainly require a major international trauma — such as an abrupt American withdrawal into isolationism — before a nuclear Japan could become politically realistic. More likely perhaps, and equally dangerous, might be a situation in which Japan went into a prolonged recession as a result of what were felt to be foreign and particularly American pressures.
Volatility is not normally a characteristic one associates with the Japanese. But rapid and abrupt changes of direction in Japanese politics and culture have happened before. After the successive upheavals of the Meiji restoration, then the first world war and then the second world war, Japan passed through phases very receptive to Western ideas. But after both these first two phases periods of intense nationalism supervened, with relative immunity from western influence. Is history now about to repeat itself?
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